The future might be hockey

12/27/13

Being a parent of twins is always an adventure for my wife, Kay, and me. There is always something new, and it’s always a challenge.

Ethan and Ryan are 19 months old now, and their speech is improving. We get new words all the time, and it’s amazing how quickly they pick things up. However, there is one word that we hear constantly, and it is the most important thing in the world to them. That word is hockey.

Apparently the boys are gigantic hockey fans. I love hockey too, and I never thought I’d ever tire of hearing the word, but after it has been said 7,340,204 times — within a period of about two hours — it starts to wear on you.

The boys love hockey, likely because a couple of months ago, we took them to their first game to watch the Saginaw Spirit of the Ontario Hockey League in Saginaw.

During the game, it seemed like they were enjoying themselves. They watched the game for a little bit, did a lot of people watching, and nervously paid close attention all night to the location of the Spirit’s mascot, Sammy Spirit — a person in a giant eagle suit —because they were deathly afraid of him.

When we left the game, we figured we’d take them to a couple more — and it was nice to know they would behave for the entire game — but we had no idea what we had just done.

A few days later, it began. The boys were playing around the house and they stumbled across our used hockey tickets in Kay’s purse.

“Hockey!” they said, holding up the tickets.

For the next several hours, they carried the tickets all over the house announcing, “Hockey! Hockey! Hockey!”

Every year, the Spirit do a number of magnet giveaways, with magnets featuring players from the team. We had a bunch of them on the refrigerator, and the boys discovered those as well. They would take them off the fridge and say, “Hockey! Hockey! Hockey!”

A few days later, it was my weekend morning to get up with them. They were kind of rambunctious. I decided to put “Sesame Street” on the television, because they generally like the show. I spent an hour trying to get them to sit down and watch it, and they were having none of it. They weren’t interested. They just kept going back to getting into things that they shouldn’t be getting into.

Later in the day, the Detroit Red Wings were playing, so I turned the game on.

“HOCKEY!” they both announced, pointing at the television. They then proceeded to climb up into the recliner together, where they watched the game intently for about a half hour.

Since that time, they’ve played with some souvenir hockey sticks that we have in the house, batting balls around the room. And now everything is hockey. A yard stick? “Hockey!” Hangars? “Hockey!” A roll of wrapping paper? “Hockey!” The Christmas tree? “Hockey!”

We have a team poster of the Saginaw Spirit hung up on our refrigerator, and the boys constantly stand in front of it, pointing to the players, announcing “Hockey!” Ryan also will yell, “Go Spirit!” and put his arms in the air.

Needless to say, they’re getting a hockey set for Christmas, and I think we’re going to have to invest in some skates in the very near future.

I also told Kay to get used to their smiles, which right now are lacking many teeth. It’s becoming apparent that we probably have a couple of hockey players on our hands.